



-^hfr-S- 



Conservation Resource, 

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Issued March, 1920 



Yale University 

SCHOOL OF FORESTRY— Bulletin No. 5 



THE DEN 

A PRELIMINARY REPORT, WITH MAP, OF A TRACT 

OF WOODLAND GIVEN TO THE SCHOOL BY 

MR. AND MRS. WINTHROP PERRY 



By 

JAMES W. TOUMEY 
Dean, and Professor of Silviculture 

and 

RALPH C. HAWLEY 

Professor of Forestry, and Forester in Charge of the School Forests 






New Haven 

Yale University Press 
1920 



Hunofripfc 



Issued March, 1920 



Yale University 

SCHOOL OF FORESTRY— Bulletin No. 5 



THE DEN 

A PRELIMINARY REPORT, WITH MAP, OF A TRACT 

OF WOODLAND GIVEN TO THE SCHOOL BY 

MR. AND MRS. WINTHROP PERRY 



By 

JAMES W. TOUMEY 
Dean, and Professor of Silviculture 

and 

RALPH C. HAWLEY 

Professor of Forestry, and Forester in Charge of the School Forests 




New Haven 

Yale University Press 
1920 






mm 77 182{ 



THE DEN 

A PRELIMINARY REPORT, WITH MAP, OF A 

TRACT OF WOODLAND GIVEN TO THE 

SCHOOL BY MR. AND MRS. 

WINTHROP PERRY 



In the autumn of 1918, through gift from Mr. and Mrs. Win- 
throp Perry, the School of Forestry came into possession of a 
number of closely connected parcels of woodland comprising over 
1,300 acres in Fairfield County, Connecticut. 

The purpose of the donors and conditions under which the gift 
was made are clearly stated in the following extracts from a letter 
from Mr. Perry to the Dean in October, 1918: 

This is intended to express definitely and in writing our understand- 
ing with reference to the real estate interests we have been holding in 
the so-called "Devil's Den," chiefly in the town of Weston and partly 
in the town of Redding in this county. 

Mrs. Perry and I understand that we have given as of October 1, 
1918, to Yale University and its successors forever, for the benefit of 
that department of the University known as the Yale School of For- 
estry, to be held forever in trust for the practice and illustration there 
of the teachings and purposes of the School, but keeping and preserv- 
ing always the natural attractions and so-called wild character of the 
lands, all of the j oint and several real estate holdings and interests 
belonging to us or either of us, in the "Den" ; that is, in the two towns 
mentioned between the highways known as the Weston-Georgetown 
highway on the west; the Knobb-Crook or Redding-Georgetown high- 
way on the north; the old Dimon road and the Norwalk-Newton high- 
way on the east and Godfrey Street on the south ; sub j ect, however, in 
every respect to the reservations, conditions, limitations, and further 
understandings herein expressed: 

We reserve during the life of the survivor of the two of us, for our 
exclusive use, without impeachment for waste or any liability for 
damage of any kind, but with all control, rights and privileges of an 
owner in fee in every respect excepting only the right to affect by any 
transfer or otherwise the title to or possession of the land itself after 
the death of the survivor of the two of us, — the lands and interests 
roughly described as our present holdings there comprised in one tract 



4 The Den — A Preliminary Report, with Map 

east of the westerly line of the lot bought by us from George E. Hazen 
in October, 1910, and of the westerly line of the forty-acre lot bought 
by us from Charles R. Morehouse in November, 1909; north of the 
Morehouse farm lands; west of the Norwalk-Newton highway and 
old Dimon road and south of the northerly line of the tract bought 
by us from Edgar B. Perry in October, 1910, in part and thence south 
of the Weston-Redding town line. 

Reserving also the right similarly to hold and use during the same 
term and further term, if any, of the life of Wilbur F. Smith, now 
Deputy Game Warden of this county, one tract of not over ten acres 
within our above reservation or near the same on the northwesterly 
corner or in Redding near the Weston-Redding town line on the north, 
as we may elect. 

Reserving also the layout of the substitute highway and all rights 
and privileges incidental to building the same where it is soon to be 
built north of the Weston-Redding town line, as located and made by 
the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company in the necessary rearrangement of 
the highways on the westerly side of its proposed Valley Forge reser- 
voir; and also reserving the right to permit and authorize such layout 
and construction as to any lands hereby transferred without any cost 
to or liability of that Company on account of the land needed therefor 
or for building the same on account of any change of grade of any 
part of the old Dimon road or any flooding of any of our present 
holdings anywhere by such proposed reservoir. 

Any buildings and all customary furnishings and equipment thereof 
belonging to either of us and being at the death of the survivor of the 
two, upon any part of any reservation for our lives hereunder, are to 
be deemed to pass with the lands to the University upon the termina- 
tion of the reservation. 

It is also understood that we will turn over to the University for the 
benefit of the School, fifty shares of the capital stock of the American 
Express Company, the net income to be used: First, in paying the 
taxes assessed upon the properties transferred, by the towns of Weston 
and Redding against the School or University, or if the lands are tax 
exempt while so held by the University, then one hundred dollars each 
year to the town of Weston to replace the tax thus lost. 

This tract of woodland is within easy reach of New Haven and 
will be constantly increasing in value and importance. It places 
the School in admirable position as to forest ownership since it 
provides a large area of hardwoods to supplement the coniferous 
forest near Keene, New Hampshire.* It is to be noted that the 
gift of the forest carries with it a fund of $5,000 as endowment. 
Furthermore, the donors generously provided the sum of $1,000 
to be used in surveying and mapping the property and in publish- 
ing this report. 

*Toumey, J. W., and Hawley, R. C. The Keene Forest: a preliminary report. 
(School of Forestry, Yale University, Bulletin 4, 1916.) 



The Den — A Preliminary Report, with Map 5 

Location of the Den 

The parcels of woodland covered by the gift have an aggregate 
area of 1,341.3 acres of which 2.6 acres are water surface. They 
are situated, for the most part, in the town of Weston, about ten 
miles north of the city of South Norwalk and about the same dis- 
tance northwest of Bridgeport. A small acreage is in the town of 
Redding. 

Fairfield County is in the southwestern part of the state of 
Connecticut and borders Long Island Sound. Although that part 
of the county along the Sound and for some miles to the north is 
moderately level and fertile, the central portion is a region of 
irregular hills and deep valleys with a correspondingly small per- 
centage of agricultural land. The "Devil's Den" is just south of 
the center of the county. The town of Weston, in the northern 
part of which most of it lies, is one of the most thinly populated 
towns in the county and one of those having the largest percentage 
of absolute forest land. 

The name "Devil's Den" owes its origin to a peculiar marking 
in a large stone which bore a fanciful resemblance to a human foot- 
print. Since it was much too large to have been made by man, it 
is said that the early settlers popularly ascribed its origin to the 
Devil. 

Early Settlement and Uses 

The lands in The Den were first granted as woodlots to farms 
lying to the south and near the Sound. The original survey lines 
were run a few degrees west of north and have long been known 
as "eleven o'clock" lines because their direction is that in which 
one's shadow falls at that hour in the forenoon. The original 
roads opening up the region were laid out along these lines at 
half-mile intervals. Due to the character of the survey, the orig- 
inal grants were in the form of rectangular strips, many times 
longer than broad, having their greatest dimension along the 
"eleven o'clock" lines. These so-called "Long Lots" extended 
from the Sound to the Redding line and were originally appor- 
tioned to the inhabitants of Fairfield in accordance with their 
wealth, Weston at that time being a part of the town of Fairfield. 
Although the original survey lines were straight, many of the old 
boundary demarkations have been shifted back and forth by 
owners until now the accepted boundaries of many of the lots 
exhibit various irregularities. 

The Den has been little utilized for agricultural purposes. 
Wood and lumber, however, have been cut there from time to time 
for at least one hundred and fifty years. As early as 1700, the 



6 The Den — A Preliminary Report, with Map 

shipping of lumber out of Fairfield County without official permis- 
sion was prohibited owing to the rapid disappearance of the choice 
hardwoods, especially white oak. At that time the region now 
embraced in the town of Weston was inaccessible and unsettled. 
It was not until 1787 that the first town meeting was held in Wes- 
ton. As the town of Weston is very stony and rough the first 
settlers obtained the greater part of their living from the forest. 

At the outset only the best of timber, such as white oak and ash, 
was taken from The Den, but it was not long before the general 
cutting of the mixed hardwood forest for the manufacture of char- 
coal was well under way. This industry afforded the chief occupa- 
tion for many years. They used the old type of open pits and 
found a ready market for their product in the shore towns and 
later at axe and other factories in the town of Weston. 

During this time nearly all The Den was cut over at least once 
and some parts have been cut over several times. With the decline 
in the demand for charcoal soon after the Civil War, there followed 
a period during which but little cutting was done. Mixed stands 
of hardwood sprouts grew up with an occasional large tree left 
from the original cuttings. 

Since the advent of the portable sawmill, some thirty years ago, 
most of the wood large enough has been cut for lumber, poles and 
ties, although there are limited areas where no cutting of any kind 
has been done for from fifty to seventy years. 

Records of from seventy to one hundred years ago show that 
The Den in those early days proved very attractive to huckleberry 
pickers who found large quantities of berries in many of the 
swamps. 

There is evidence that The Den was a favorite rendezvous of the 
Indians even after settlements were established along the Sound. 
Many arrowheads and occasional tomahawks and stone pipes have 
been picked up by the settlers. Indian Spring at the foot of Rac- 
coon Ledge is said to have derived its name from the fact that an 
Indian camp or small Indian village was located near by. Clams 
were brought from the Sound and cooked in a cave under the 
rocks of this ledge and large quantities of the broken shells are still 
in evidence in the soil about this cave. 

Topography and Soil 

The topography is hilly and rugged. Viewed from the highest 
point it appears as an uneven, broken country with no definite 
arrangement of hills and valleys. Drainage is into the west branch 
and main Saugatuck River, flowing south toward the Sound. 




I. Sawmill pond on the south end of the property, showing the mixed 
hardwood stands typical of most parts of The Den. 




II. The Kennel Lot, showing the forest after the removal of the chestnut. 



The Den — A Preliminary Report, with Map 7 

Several streams, one of fair size, with belts of swamp on portions 
of their course cross the property in a general southerly direction. 

The "Devil's Den" is entirely within the formation known as 
Thomaston granite-gneiss* and dikes of considerable extent and 
height are not uncommon there. The rock in this formation is 
metamorphic-igneous in origin and varies in structure from almost 
massive granite to distinctly schistose phases. 

While the rocks underlying the surface soil vary considerably 
in texture and structure, some offering a greater resistance to 
weathering agencies than others, the resulting soil materials from 
all of them are very much the same. It appears that glaciation, 
instead of scouring off the original soil and depositing great 
depths of glacial debris or till, served rather to mix up the soil 
materials with rock fragments, leaving much of it in place. The 
upland soils, for the most part, bear a close relation to the under- 
lying rock and are too stony for agriculture. Although the lower 
lying areas are more or less deeply covered with glacial debris, 
they are usually too stony for profitable tillage. 

The soils of recent origin, namely, the muck accumulations of 
depressed swampy areas, are the only ones reasonably free from 
stones. Taken as a whole, the soil is a shallow loam of variable 
depth, due to the broken and rough topography. 

Character of the Forest 

The forest is second growth, heavily cut over, and consists of 
mixed hardwood sprouts. The early cuttings and those of the 
last half century for lumber, poles and ties, have left most parts of 
the present forest stocked with relatively small timber. Chestnut, 
until recently the most important species, has been practically 
exterminated by the blight. The oaks (red, chestnut and white) 
predominate and together with white ash and whitewood are the 
species of greatest future promise. 

Gray birch and soft maple, both relatively inferior trees, are 
abundant and have increased with the removal of the more valuable 
species. 

The forest may be separated into even-aged stands of from 
twenty up to eighty years. Nearly all of these stands show irregu- 
larities in age due to the death of the chestnut and to the culling 
out of the better trees for lumber and ties at different times during 
the last few decades. These irregularities in age are so common 
and so complex, as seen on the ground, that it was not possible 
in the time available to map the forest into distinct stands each 

*Rice and Gregory: Manual of the Geology of Connecticut. Connecticut 
Geological and Historical Survey, Bulletin 6, 1906. 



8 The Den — A Peeliminary Repoet, with Map 

of a separate age. It was possible, however, to distinguish and 
map three cover types described as follows : 

1. Hardwood type. Comprises all stands of mixed hardwoods 
on well-drained soils. 

2. Swamp Hardwood type. Includes all stands of mixed hard- 
woods on poorly drained soils. 

3. Old Field type. Contains the areas formerly cleared for 
cultivation or pasturage but now seeding up to red cedar, gray 
birch and other hardwoods. Approximately 60 per cent of this 
type is not stocked with trees and is in need of planting. Many 
areas formerly cleared on which the reversion to a hardwood forest 
is complete, are now included in the hardwood type. 

The following table shows the acreage of each type. 



Areas by Types 



Type 


Acreage 


Percentage 




1,208.6 
46.8 
51.3 


92.5 


Old Field 


3.6 


Swamp Hardwood. . 


3.9 


Total 


1,306.7 


100.0 







Present Yield and Grozvth 

Over most of the area there are comparatively few trees large 
enough for ties or lumber. Exceptions occur, as for example the 
60-acre or Kennel lot, which has approximately 300,000 board feet 
of oak and other valuable hardwoods. While no careful estimate 
has been made, it is believed that there are approximately 12,000 
cords of fuel wood and from one-half to three-quarters of a million 
board feet of ties and lumber now on the property. In spite of the 
numerous rocky ledges, surface boulders and swamps, the property 
as a whole is fair, average land for production of tree crops. It is 
estimated that the forest is growing at the average rate of 700 
cords per year. 

Management of the Property 

A working plan for the property will be gradually developed. 
In the meantime the more essential requirements along the lines of 
organization and treatment are being undertaken. 

The large amount of dead chestnut on portions of the tract 
made a salvage cutting the first necessity. Since the acquisition 
of the property in the autumn of 1918, approximately 375,000 



The Den — A Preliminary Repoet, with Map 9 

board feet of chestnut lumber, ties and poles have been cut and 
sold. This amount is not included in the estimate previously made 
of the lumber now standing. Disposal of the dead and dying 
chestnut is not yet completed and tie hewers are still at work at 
this task. 

When the tract was turned over by Mr. and Mrs. Perry it had 
never been surveyed in its entirety. Maps already existed for the 
portions to the northeast but it was necessary to find the lines in 
the field and survey the boundaries of the remainder. This was 
a difficult piece of work due to the number of interior holdings, the 
lack of previous surveys within recent years and uncertainty as 
to corners, as well as to the roughness and brushiness of the region 
surveyed. 

The survey as finally completed and shown on the accompany- 
ing map has covered all but four lots included in The Den prop- 
erty. The four unsurveyed pieces are estimated at 32 acres as 
follows : 

Carver lot, one to two miles southeast of the main 

holdings 15 acres. 

Sterling, Belden and Bates lots, lying north of 
the Kennel lot, south of the State Farm and 
west of the main holdings 17 acres. 

Work Planned for the Immediate Future 

The four unsurveyed lots will be surveyed as soon as definite 
information can be secured as to the boundary corners. 

The principal wood roads will be brushed out in order to facili- 
tate passage through the property. At present many of these 
roads are so choked with brush as to be difficult to find and are 
almost impassable. Their opening will assist in protecting the 
forest from fire. 

The principal corners will be permanently marked and the 
boundary lines where now unmarked will be blazed out and posted 
with notices. 

The old field type covering 46.8 acres will be planted to red pine 
and white pine. This should be done at the earliest possible 
moment since brush is encroaching on the open land. The old 
field areas lying near the southeast corner are temporarily subject 
to a grazing privilege and cannot now be planted. Those on the 
60-acre lot, amounting to 7.0 acres, and those on the road to the 
bungalow, aggregating 27.3 acres, should be planted within the 
next few years. 

Cutting of chestnut will be pushed so far as it is profitable. 



10 The Den — A Preliminary Report, with Map 

Beyond utilizing the chestnut, no cuttings are contemplated, inas- 
much as the wood capital is already low and most of the timber is 
relatively young. It is considered advisable to allow the forest to 
grow and accumulate a larger wood capital. 

Eventually the strategic location of The Den, with respect to 
the surrounding farming areas, particularly on the south and 
west, and also to important industrial centers, should afford profit- 
able markets for cordwood and other forest products as it be- 
comes possible to remove them without impairing the natural 
attractiveness of the wild woodland. 



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MAP 

SHOWING LOCATION OF THE 

DEN LANDS 

OV/NED BY THE 

SCHOOL OF FORESTRY-YALE UNIVERSITY 

IN THE TOWNS OP 

WESTON AND REDDING CONN 

SCALE I- 80& DECEMBER ISA 







*~Kfr.s- 



i IRRARY OF CONGRESS 

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